EMSOC partners advise Privacy Commission in Facebook investigation

29 Nov 2017

Our EMSOC research in social media firms such as Facebook continues to have a positive impact. Indeed, the Privacy Commission used our project results and our connections to investigate Facebook’s updated privacy statement in January 2015. This has enabled the Privacy Commission to take Facebook to court and protect Belgian users’ (and non-users’) privacy.

Facebook and its approach to privacy

SMIT and CiTiP (KULeuven) already criticized the informed consent that Facebook demands as no longer being voluntarily given. The powerful platform forced consent by presenting its privacy statement updates as a take-it-or-leave-Facebook choice. SMIT’s research illustrated how Facebook has become too embedded in everyday lives of teens to even consider the ‘leave Facebook’ option. SMIT’s research on Facebook as a part of the larger online display advertising ecology also brought to light the platform’s interest to track users on non-Facebook websites.

Want to learn more about EMSOC and how the Privacy commission used our results?

Rob Heyman

Senior Researcher

The more digitalised we live, the more we get personalised decisions based on our information. My goal is to uncover how these things work and get people to understand what happens with data. I find it curious that so little is known about data in the age of big data. My method consists of uncovering […]